H

Headway

Connects patients with in-network therapists

Engineering Manager - Data Safety

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/17/2026
$222.8k - $278.5k/yr+ Equity grant
Mid
Seattle, WA, USA+2 moreMore locations: San Francisco, CA, USA | New York, NY, USA
Hybrid
Engineering ManagementEngineering Leadership

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 3 years of engineering management experience at a high-growth startup or scale-up.
  • At least 4 years of experience as a software engineer, sufficient to credibly hold technical direction.
  • A track record of building and leading high-performing teams that delivered business outcomes through technical investment.
  • A strong product mindset and cross-functional relationships that build trust with users and stakeholders.
  • Experience shipping under compliance or audit pressure, with the scope discipline that requires.
  • Comfort with data platform and privacy systems, including access control, data classification, pipelines, and de-identification.
Responsibilities
  • Lead, manage, and grow the Data Safety engineering team.
  • Own delivery on privacy and compliance commitments, including their audit evidence.
  • Set the technical and operational roadmap across de-identification, data access tiers, entitlements, and LLM data handling.
  • Develop the team through weekly one-on-ones, mentorship, and direct feedback, and grow a tech-lead layer beneath the manager.
  • Partner with Security, Privacy and Compliance, Legal, Data Platform, and product pods to move quickly and safely.
  • Contribute to broader group and company strategy, not only the team’s roadmap.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience in healthcare, financial services, or another regulated, high-trust domain.
  • Experience with HIPAA de-identification, tokenisation, differential privacy, or data governance tooling.
  • Prior experience with Python, React, and AWS infrastructure.

About the company

H

Headway

View
cbWebsite

Headway builds a platform that makes mental healthcare easier to access and afford. For individuals, it helps users find therapists and psychiatrists who accept their insurance, letting them filter by preferences and compare thousands of providers so out-of-pocket costs are lower. For providers, it reduces administrative work related to insurance, enabling in-network care without the bureaucratic hassle. The product connects patients and providers through insurance-enabled matching and handles the related paperwork and billing so care can be more affordable and straightforward. Unlike networks that only list providers, Headway actively streamlines both sides of the process by coordinating with health plans and practices to maximize in-network care. The goal is to create a system where finding, paying for, and receiving therapy is simple, affordable, and accessible for more people.

Company Size

1,001-5,000

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$327M

Headquarters

New York City, New York

Founded

2019

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • March 2026 Tezi talent added AI engineering depth for automation across operations.
  • September 2025 AI-assisted notes drove 200,000 notes quickly, showing real provider adoption.
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois invested in Headway and routed members through it.

What critics are saying

  • California privacy claims over Google tracking survived in 2025, raising damages and trust risk.
  • The 2026 Tezi acqui-hire signals heavy AI spending without proven payer or patient ROI.
  • Rula, Grow Therapy, and Alma now market stronger copays, Medicaid reach, and psychiatry.

What makes Headway unique

  • Headway’s 80,000+ provider network gives insured patients unusual breadth and access.
  • Its free insurance-native EHR bundles billing, telehealth, scheduling, and documentation.
  • Headway negotiates directly with 55+ plans, including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid.

Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?

Benefits

  • Equity Compensation
  • Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
  • HSA / FSA
  • 401K
  • Work-from-Home Stipend
  • Therapy Reimbursement
  • 16-week parental leave for eligible employees
  • Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
  • 13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
  • Flexible Paid Time Off
  • Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
  • Training and professional development

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

2%
Behavioral Health Business
Oct 2nd, 2026
Headway faces backlash after unveiling new opt-in patient marketplace with $10 per-session fee.

Headway faces backlash after unveiling new opt-in patient marketplace with $10 per-session fee. Venture-backed digital mental health platform Headway yesterday announced a new opt-in marketplace offering for clinicians in response to requests to connect with more patients. For every session initiated through the new marketplace option, the company will now charge clinicians a $9.99 fee per session. In response, multiple clinicians on its platform and others across the sector who are not part of the platform spoke out against the move on social media and directly to Behavioral Health Business. Broadly, the industry's collective concern is that the per-session marketplace fees for clients acquired via this new opt-in choice will squeeze the providers on its platform even tighter financially on top of current reimbursement rates and other industry pressures already have. Headway has stated that the $9.99 per-session fee does not apply to other patients that the providers bring in on their own via their direct original link. "There's no fee for clients who book through a provider's own Headway booking link," a spokesperson from the company told BHB. "That includes clients who find a provider on Psychology Today, their own website, or anywhere else [and] then book through that link. The fee applies only when a client finds and books a provider through the Headway marketplace." Existing caseloads are also exempt from the fee. Essentially, when clinicians opt in to the new marketplace, they will have a separate, unique UTM tracking portion of the link. If they accept marketplace patients who come to Headway.co without a specific therapist in mind, the new search and matching flow function will apply the fee to each session they have with that patient. Clinicians do have the option to opt out of Headway's new marketplace option entirely and continue using the platform in the way they always have with their direct Headway link. There is also no penalty for doing so, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to BHB. Because Headway aims to be a back-end solution for small practices, the $9.99 fee may turn some clinicians away and could lead to attrition. Headway confirmed that it will reinvest additional revenue from new marketplace session fees to make its new marketplace and patient app offerings more robust over time. The company has already invested $150 million in its new marketplace platform and to get its patient app up and running this year alone, the spokesperson confirmed. "We've invested a lot into getting this patient marketplace up to where it is, but we have 90,000 providers on the platform, many of whom want access to more patients," Headway's spokesperson said. "So, to drive that sort of demand and that amount of patients for our providers, we need to invest a lot more. If we could do this without introducing a new fee, I'm sure we would have. But this is to make sure that we can invest on top of that $150 million." Headway did not confirm the number of providers it anticipates will opt in to the new marketplace patient option with fees. The company also did not comment on how much it expects to bring in from the new fee revenue. Earlier this year, Headway also introduced biometric verification for patients on its platform - a move that also raised concerns over data privacy risks from some clinicians. The company reached a $2.3 billion valuation in 2024 after raising $100 million in a Series D round. Headway has historically been a B2B focused company, but the launch of the marketplace and its new app are the company's inaugural steps to become more "patient-facing," the spokesperson said. That will be a focus for Headway moving forward. Ashleigh Hollowell is a professional journalist who has spent her career covering a range of local news, contributing to independent magazines and trade publications, and providing in-depth national health care reporting. Her work has appeared in Becker's Hospital Review, VentureBeat, PopSugar, MSN Singapore, and related outlets. She received her bachelor's degree from Colorado State University-Pueblo and her master's from Syracuse University. In her free time, she volunteers with local organizations, enjoys hiking, reading, and yoga. October 2, 2026 September 29, 2026 September 28, 2026

Psychotherapy Action Network
May 19th, 2026
The therapy session is being monetized. Here is what clinicians need to know.

The therapy session is being monetized. Here is what clinicians need to know. Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) co-founder and chair Linda Michaels joined hosts David Dayen and Matt Stoller on the Organized Money podcast to talk about what is really happening to the therapy profession in the United States, and why it matters far beyond the consulting room. The episode, titled "The Chatbot Will See You Now: Tech in Therapy," covers the full landscape: insurance companies that underpay therapists and obstruct access, venture capital-backed Practice Management Companies (PMCs) like Headway, Alma, Rula, and Grow Therapy that extract data and profit from therapist labor, and the push to replace human care with AI chatbots, all while obscuring what is actually being taken from patients and clinicians alike. What Therapy is, and what it is not. Linda grounded the conversation in what makes psychotherapy work, and why shortcuts fail. "Trust is core," she said. "Without it, therapy doesn't work. People go to therapy with their most vulnerable, perhaps embarrassing and shameful problems and parts of themselves. If there is no trust, there is no confidentiality, there is no privacy, people are not going to open up." When host Matt Stoller raised Mark Zuckerberg's claim that AI could serve as everyone's therapist, Linda was direct: "That's not what therapy is. Therapy is for people who have serious, complex problems, multiple problems, problems that maybe go back generations in their families that they cannot unwind or understand or change by themselves." The PMC model: what therapists are not being told. Linda drew on Psychotherapy Action Network's research survey of nearly 700 mental health professionals to describe how PMCs recruit therapists with promises of administrative relief and better pay, while obscuring the actual terms of the arrangement. Eighty-five percent of therapists using PMCs do not know who owns the company they work for. Most do not know what cut the PMC takes. What they are signing is, in effect, an Uber contract, in which the platform owns patient data and clinicians become 1099 contractors. "If the value proposition were explained honestly," Linda said, "you would hear: you are going to become a contractor to a company owned by the very insurance companies that are the bane of your existence, you will give up ownership of your patient records, and there is a 50-50 chance you will actually earn more money. How does that sound?" AI documentation tools and the recording of therapy sessions. Linda explained how PMCs use the threat of insurance clawbacks to push therapists toward AI documentation tools that record entire therapy sessions, generate transcripts, and feed that data to third-party vendors. Buried in terms of service are provisions allowing that data to be used for analytics, AI training, and, as Talkspace has stated directly in investor reports, to build proprietary large language models. Headway, one of the largest PMCs, is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit alleging the sharing of patient data with Google. Google Ventures is an owner of Headway. "This is all built on transcripts and recordings of what patients should believe are private conversations between them and their therapist," Linda said. The Illinois model: proof that advocacy works. The episode also covered Illinois House Bill 1085, passed in 2025 with significant advocacy support, including from Psychotherapy Action Network. The law raises reimbursement rates for therapists toward parity with medical and surgical rates, reduces administrative barriers for therapists joining insurance networks, and is projected to expand access to psychotherapy for 2.5 million people in Illinois. "If it happened in Illinois, it can happen elsewhere," Linda said. "We are working on a model bill based on the Illinois legislation that other states can use." This is the work. Support it. The fight Linda describes on Organized Money is exactly the fight Psychotherapy Action Network exists to wage. Psian stand against the commodification of care and the extraction of patient data for profit. Psian stand for therapists and patients who deserve better than what corporate medicine is offering them. Listen to the full episode onApple Podcasts,Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico
May 13th, 2026
How behavioral health teams guide members to care.

How behavioral health teams guide members to care. May 13, 2026 Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults live with at least one mental health condition, and a growing number of people are seeking help. Yet even those with insurance can have trouble navigating care because they often aren't as familiar with their behavioral health benefits as they are with their medical benefits. Identifying in-network treatment and resources can be an overwhelming task, especially during a mental health dilemma. "They don't really know what their policies include," says behavioral health care coordinator Carmela Rupe. "I'm explaining the basics of insurance," she says, adding she often steers individual and family plan members toward in-network care and resources to help them find new providers and access covered in-person treatment centers to help control their conditions. Rupe is among teams of care coordinators at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico providing behavioral health education, guidance and resources to help members find the care they need. Licensed in behavioral health care, they assist members seeking treatment for conditions, including anxiety, depression, substance misuse and autism, and avoid scammers targeting vulnerable people. "An insurance company is not necessarily viewed as the primary resource for behavioral health information," says Scott Bender, BCBSNM's executive director for behavioral health operations. "Many people will go to the internet to do a search or ask their friends and family for references. But that's a service we provide specifically in behavioral health." Although insured adults are more likely to receive mental health care than those without coverage, they still had difficulty accessing services, according to KFF. The health care policy nonprofit found nearly 45% of insured adults with mental health concerns could not get the mental health treatment they thought they needed. Depending on the plan, member resources include digital behavioral health tools and access to virtual and in-person providers. In 2025, BCBSNM launched a digital mental health hub available on the member account portal to improve resource access. More than 35,000 members have used the hub to find providers and educational tools. BCBSNM also has invested in Headway, a technology-enabled platform that connects and expands access for members to a diverse, national network of licensed therapists and psychiatrists. Care coordinators can offer guidance to appropriate levels of care, no matter whether members already have a diagnosis or are seeking treatment for the first time. They may also collaborate with other teams to coordinate medical care and medication compliance. "Seeking care can be very confusing," says Dr. Ella Williams, senior executive medical director for behavioral health. "There's just such a lack of knowledge about what's available to them. We want to increase people's awareness about the types of treatment and care that's covered." Rupe often reaches out to members to better coordinate their care if they've had at least two inpatient treatment admissions a year. She also ensures members receive their prescribed medications to maintain their physical and mental health. "We're real people who have been trained as masters-level individual clinicians," she says. "Our ethics as clinicians guide us. We want to help members get what they need." That expertise builds credibility with members, says Amy Wiley, a behavioral health case management coordinator. "Some members have never navigated the systems that are available to them," says Wiley, who's helped many members new to seeking behavioral health care. "They're overwhelmed because they don't know what they have." She always tries to provide members with educational information to help increase awareness, ease frustration and build trust. "We try to match members with the services they need," Wiley says. "We are really lucky in that we can spend more time with members to really dive in, ask questions and help take some of the legwork out of helping them find resources."

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois
May 12th, 2026
How behavioral health teams guide members to care.

How behavioral health teams guide members to care. May 12, 2026 Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults live with at least one mental health condition, and a growing number of people are seeking help. Yet even those with insurance can have trouble navigating care because they often aren't as familiar with their behavioral health benefits as they are with their medical benefits. Identifying in-network treatment and resources can be an overwhelming task, especially during a mental health dilemma. "They don't really know what their policies include," says behavioral health care coordinator Carmela Rupe. "I'm explaining the basics of insurance," she says, adding she often steers individual and family plan members toward in-network care and resources to help them find new providers and access covered in-person treatment centers to help control their conditions. Rupe is among teams of care coordinators at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois providing behavioral health education, guidance and resources to help members find the care they need. Licensed in behavioral health care, they assist members seeking treatment for conditions, including anxiety, depression, substance misuse and autism, and avoid scammers targeting vulnerable people. "An insurance company is not necessarily viewed as the primary resource for behavioral health information," says Scott Bender, executive director for behavioral health operations. "Many people will go to the internet to do a search or ask their friends and family for references. But that's a service we provide specifically in behavioral health." Although insured adults are more likely to receive mental health care than those without coverage, they still had difficulty accessing services, according to KFF. The health care policy nonprofit found nearly 45% of insured adults with mental health concerns could not get the mental health treatment they thought they needed. Depending on the plan, member resources include digital behavioral health tools and access to virtual and in-person providers. In 2025, BCBSIL launched a digital mental health hub available on the member account portal to improve resource access. More than 35,000 members have used the hub to find providers and educational tools. BCBSIL also has invested in Headway, a technology-enabled platform that connects and expands access for members to a diverse, national network of licensed therapists and psychiatrists. Care coordinators can offer guidance to appropriate levels of care, no matter whether members already have a diagnosis or are seeking treatment for the first time. They may also collaborate with other teams to coordinate medical care and medication compliance. "Seeking care can be very confusing," says Dr. Ella Williams, senior executive medical director for behavioral health. "There's just such a lack of knowledge about what's available to them. We want to increase people's awareness about the types of treatment and care that's covered." Rupe often reaches out to members to better coordinate their care if they've had at least two inpatient treatment admissions a year. She also ensures members receive their prescribed medications to maintain their physical and mental health. "We're real people who have been trained as masters-level individual clinicians," she says. "Our ethics as clinicians guide us. We want to help members get what they need." That expertise builds credibility with members, says Amy Wiley, a behavioral health case management coordinator. "Some members have never navigated the systems that are available to them," says Wiley, who's helped many members new to seeking behavioral health care. "They're overwhelmed because they don't know what they have." She always tries to provide members with educational information to help increase awareness, ease frustration and build trust. "We try to match members with the services they need," Wiley says. "We are really lucky in that we can spend more time with members to really dive in, ask questions and help take some of the legwork out of helping them find resources."

PR Newswire
Mar 31st, 2026
Headway Acquires Team Behind Tezi to Advance Human-Centered AI in Mental Health Care

/PRNewswire/ -- Headway, the company building a new mental healthcare system that everyone can access, today announced the acquisition of the team behind Tezi,...